Nigerian Lawyer Burnt His Wig in Viral Video after Tribunal Dismissed Atiku, Obi's Petition against Tinubu?
Nigerian maverick singer Charles Oputa, popularly known as Charly Boy, posted a tweet claiming that a Nigerian lawyer "burnt his wig to say goodbye to practice" after the tribunal affirmed President Bola Tinubu's victory in the 2023 elections.
Verdict: The claim is false. Though Charly Boy's tweet shows the video of a man burning a lawyer's wig, the video is not from Nigeria.
Source: Twitter
Legit.ng's findings show that the video, which first appeared on the internet on March 22, is from Jamaica.
Full text:
On Wednesday, September 6, the presidential election petition tribunal dismissed the petitions filed by Atiku Abubakar (PDP) and Peter Obi (LP) against President Bola Tinubu's victory in the 2023 general election.
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Many supporters of Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, and Atiku rejected the verdict and accused the tribunal of miscarriage of justice.
Amid the heated and mixed reactions, Charly Boy, one of the supporters of Obi, tweeted a 38-second video claiming that an aggrieved lawyer burnt his wig and stopped practising to protest the verdict.
In the video, a man whose face was not shown was seen burning a lawyer's wig.
Tribunal verdict: Is Charly Boy's claim true?
To verify Charly Boy's claim, Legit.ng conducted a keyword search, which led to a fuller version of the video posted on Facebook on March 12, 2022, by Jamaica Gleaner, a media platform in Jamaica.
Further checks led to the full story about the video on Jamaica Gleaner's website.
According to the report, the person in the video is Hugh Small, a Queen's Counsel, who "has a burning desire for Jamaica to do away with the United Kingdom-based Privy Council as its final appellate court".
He set ablaze three judicial wigs because he regarded them as symbols of the country's colonial past. One of the wigs reportedly belonged to his late father, Senior Puisne Judge Ronald Small.
"Another belonged to him, but he could not immediately recall the origin of the third wig," the report stated.
"Small said for various reasons, the wigs were no longer of any symbolic or sentimental value to him."
Tribunal judgment: Peter Obi breaks silence
Earlier, Legit.ng reported that Obi reacted to the verdict of the presidential election petition tribunal, noting that he would not relent on retrieving his mandate.
Obi stated this on Thursday, September 7, in Onitsha, Anambra state.
He added that he had instructed his legal representative to file an appeal in the Supreme Court to challenge the verdict.
Source: Legit.ng
